Across Moghra'yi, Vol. I: The Sunderlies: Difference between revisions

{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |Across Moghra'yi: Being the Foremost Catalogue of Strange Civilizations beyond the Great Salt Desert by the Baccata Yewtarch, Volume I: The Sunderlies

As a matter of convention, I date all events according to their chronological distance from an event of paramount historical significance, namely the publication of these volumes. Accordingly, note that the events' parenthetical dates signify their occurrence "prior [to] publication".}}</poem>}}

{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |{&amp;CThe Sunderlies}

Several millennia ago, the migrants who followed the receding waterline down into the to-be desert basin were largely wiped out by the onset of the ice age. Most of the clans perished; those that survived were driven deep into the lightless comb-caves where the last vestiges of technology warmed the sheltered earth. The Sunderlies were devoid of higher life during the coldest centuries -- giant, ice-sheathed worms coursed their way through the frozen caves and woolly rocs made their nests atop the snowy peaks, but what remained of man did not emerge for thousands of years.}}</poem>}}

{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |A millennium after the last people were driven into the earth, at the height of the Wrathchild empire in the great southern salt desert called Moghra'yi, a race of beings known as the Ophaedians migrated north from their desert city to the Sunderlies. There they escaped the reach of the kuyeti, the monstrous man-scorpions whose empire spanned the great desert. The Ophaedians were gifted with the ability of goldworking, and during the course of their four-thousand year reign over the Sunderlies they wrought hundreds of spires and bridges of solid gold. Around 1800P they disappeared suddenly, perhaps as a result of the warming climate to which they had lost their adaptation from their years spent in the colder northlands. As the earth warmed, a primitive people emerged from their cavern recesses. They climbed the snowy combs and settled the superior caves. According to their myths, these new folk made oaths to the nameless gods who had warmed the earth for their children's return to the surface. So were born the clans of true folk.

As the myth goes, the clans of true folk are those families that can trace their lineages back to patriarchs who swore oaths and remained loyal to the Sunderlies' nameless gods. There were those who betrayed the nameless, forging pacts with strange, foreign gods in exchange for gifts of power. According to the true folk, those traitors and their cursed offspring, aroused by their greed, made war upon each other until their families were sundered and driven apart. All the while the true folk remained stalwart in their holds, readying their might to serve vengeance to the traitors. So began a long history of slavery. Over time several of the children of the treacherous became remorseful, and the relationship between master and slave matured to something akin to master and servant. To the present several of the "gifted" (or "accursed") tribes remain indentured to the clans of true folk.}}</poem>}}

{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |{&amp;CGreat Clans}

The Lecrays hail from the fertile Bowl of Iris along the northen reaches ofthe Sunderlies. They trace their lineage back to Lecray of Iris, called Lecray the Bountiful or Lecray the Virile. Clan Lecray maintains that they are the purest of the clans of true folk as the Bowl of Iris was the last of the fertile lands untouched by the servants of foreign gods. Unsurprisingly, this notion is disputed by the other great clans. Clan Lecray's sigil is a horn of plenty on a verdant green field.}}</poem>}}

{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |{&amp;COther Clans}

The river folk of Clan Calypso claim descendancy from Calypso the river-wife. Some claim she was in truth a river nymph, and that her beauty was such as to tempt a river god into revealing to her his name. Clan Calypso's sigil is a lock of raven hair bound by a strand of cragweed.}}</poem>}}

{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |{&amp;cClan Danneskjold}

Formerly one of the elder clans of true folk, the children Karkayan are descendant from Karkayan called the Clay Man. He lived deep in the heart of the central Sunderlies amongst the ageless rocks, from which it was said the gods wrought him. Though the clan was counted among the true-blooded, they long held the secret of their patriarch's deific betrayal and the gift of shapeshifting bestowed upon him by the treacherous god Rorth. That secret was unveiled at the Court of Face in 24P, after which the other eight clans in their fury joined strengths, sacked the Karkayan freehold Karkanya, and wiped out the Karkayan line, though rumors persist that some of the family escaped. Clan Karkayan's sigil is a human face sculpted from stone bluff.}}</poem>}}

{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |{&amp;CFreeholds}

Goldmouth, founded by the merchant guilds in 38PP.}}</poem>}}

{{quote | <poem>{{#invoke: ColorParse | parse |{&amp;cOther Freeholds}

Karkanya, founded by Clan Karkayan in 190PP, abandoned after the fall of Karkayan in 24PP.}}</poem>}}